Jalainur District 扎赉诺尔区

History

Jalainur grew up around its mines: coal has been dug here since 1902, and the district government calls it a city built on coal. From 1980 to 1984 an ancient riverbed some 40 metres below the surface at the Lingquan (灵泉) open-cast mine gave up three complete Songhua River mammoth skeletons and two woolly rhinoceros skeletons, radiocarbon-dated to about 34,000 years ago. A human skull found in the mine in 1933 was named Jalainur Man (扎赉诺尔人) by the Japanese palaeoanthropologist Endō Ryūji (远藤隆次). The fossil area has been a key cultural relic protection unit of Inner Mongolia since 1996, and the district calls itself the 'home of the mammoth'.

What to see

The district holds two national key cultural relic protection units. The Jalainur Tombs (扎赉诺尔墓群), on the slopes of the east bank of the Dalan Oromo River (达兰鄂罗木河), are a Tuoba Xianbei (拓跋鲜卑) cemetery of the Eastern Han period, found in 1959 and listed in 2006; according to the district government, they pushed the archaeological record of the Tuoba Xianbei back to the Eastern Han. The Mogushan North Site (蘑菇山北遗址), on Mogu Hill about 3 kilometres north of Qianshao station on the Binzhou railway, is a Late Palaeolithic site where more than a hundred stone tools have been collected; it was listed in 2013. The Mogushan tombs (蘑菇山墓群), found in 2011 and provisionally identified as an Eastern Han Tuoba Xianbei cemetery, have yielded pottery, gold, bronze, iron, bone and lacquer grave goods.

The Steam Locomotive Museum (蒸汽机车博物馆) stands in Mammoth Park in the Jalainur new district. Its building copies the Russian-style Manzhouli railway station of 1903. The district government describes it as the first museum in China to show a steam locomotive cut open lengthwise; four halls trace how steam engines work, their history worldwide and in China, and their use in Jalainur.

Getting oriented

The district is a long, irregular strip of 269.69 square kilometres. It borders New Barag Left Banner (新巴尔虎左旗) and New Barag Right Banner (新巴尔虎右旗), and its southern side fronts Hulun Lake. To the north, the Erka (二卡) port links it by land and water with Abagaitu (阿巴盖图) in Russia's Chita region.

Highlights

• Jalainur Tombs 扎赉诺尔墓群: Eastern Han Tuoba Xianbei cemetery found in 1959; national key cultural relic protection unit from 2006.
• Mogushan North Site 蘑菇山北遗址: Late Palaeolithic stone-tool site on Mogu Hill; national key cultural relic protection unit from 2013.
• Steam Locomotive Museum 蒸汽机车博物馆: In Mammoth Park, housed in a copy of the 1903 Manzhouli station, with a locomotive cut open lengthwise.
• Jalainur mammal and early human fossil area 扎赉诺尔哺乳动物及古人类化石区: Source of mammoth and woolly rhinoceros skeletons and the 1933 Jalainur Man skull; regional protected site from 1996.